One thing about us humans... boy we love dates. Now, I’m not talking about the fruit of course, but rather the very human invention of a calendar and dates by which we keep time in our hectic lives. We appreciate specific dates by means of which we can commemorate meaningful events in our lives. We mark happy occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries each year, bringing joy into our world. We also mark tragic events in our lives by means of specific dates. There are yahrtzeits, anniversaries of the death of a loved one, we observe each year on the same day on the Jewish calendar. Then there are dates like December 7th 1941, or September 11th 2001, dates when our lives as Americans were forever changed. Each of these dates serves a specific function. They remind us that though they are merely days like all the others, somehow they seem different to us.
Which brings me to this morning’s Parasha. This morning, only a few moments ago we stood together as a community as we attempted to relive the seminal moment in our national, religious history: the Revelation on Mount Sinai. I would say that is pretty much the definition of a really big day in Jewish history. A date worth remembering. Which leads me to ask the question: When does the Torah say it happened? On what day? At what time? In what year? For example: when the Torah wanted to tell us when to observe the Passover rituals, it clearly states: On the 15th of the month of Nissan, (The first month of the year according to the Bible) we are to observe Passover by telling the story of the Exodus and eating some matzah! And on the 15th day of the Seventh month we are to dwell in booths for eight days. And on the tenth day of the seventh month we are to observe a Day of Atonement when we are to afflict our souls.
But here in this mornings Parasha, Parshat Yitro, when we read of the events at Mt. Sinai, those pertinent details are noticeably absent. Yes the Torah tell us that the Revelation occurred “BaHodesh Ha’Sh’lishi” in the Third month, the month of Sivan; and yes it also states “BaYom HaZeh” “On that very day,” but it does not specify on what particular day. Later on in the parasha, God tells Moses that he should make the people ready for the third day, that on that day they will receive the Torah. But on the third day after what! From where do we start counting?
All of this led the great rabbis of the Talmud to have a vigorous debate as to the exact date of Matan Torah, of the Revelation at Mt. Sinai; did it occur on the sixth day or the seventh day of Sivan? Ultimately, after much discussion it was decided that the date was the sixth of Sivan, corresponding to our current celebration of the holiday Shavuot. But you get the point: if God wanted us to remember this date in our history, this date when God betrothed us for all time, why doesn’t the Torah tell us exactly when it occurred?
Well there are two traditional answers to the Torah’s stunning omission of this important detail; one of them being a mystical interpretation, the other perhaps being a bit more scientific (as you will see in a minute.) First the mystical: Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin, in his commentary Oznaim L’Torah also notices that the Torah fails to tell us the precise day upon which the Revelation took place. But he chooses to begin his commentary by saying: “What a wondrous thing it is that the date of the acceptance of the Torah is not given in our Bible!” Rabbi Sorotzkin thinks that this is a truly marvelous omission of detail. In this way, he explains, the text teaches us: She’HaTorah Hi L’Malah Min Ha’z’man, “That the Torah is above the constraints of time.” For those of you who are fans of the TV show LOST this may sound a bit familiar. But regardless of your knowledge of TV, the point is clear. The Torah is too great, too important, too limitless to be confined within the restraints of linear time. It can not be put in a box. It was not given merely at one point along the timeline of the Jewish people, but rather it has, and it continues to exist at EVERY moment within our collective past, present and future.
The second answer is perhaps a bit more scientific, and certainly given the events of this past week, more timely (no pun intended.) Basing himself on the phrase:
בַּיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֔ה בָּ֖אוּ מִדְבַּ֥ר סִינָֽי:
“On that very day they entered the wilderness of Sinai,” Rashi comments as follows:
Why does the Torah say “On that very day?” In order that the words of Torah be consistently new to you as though it were the day of Revelation itself. The Orach Hayyim adds that the Bible does not say “The Torah was given 2000 years ago, and only according to the living conditions which existed at that specific time and place.” Rather it ambiguously notes that the Torah was given “BaYom HaZeh”, “on that very day,” as though every day were the day it was given - because the laws of the Torah and its traditions are ever-lasting, and they can be applied to every place, to every time and to every era.”
In other words, the Torah is not some dinosaur fossil discovered in a rockbed, fixed in its specific time and place. It does not exist in ancient times only to become extinct and irrelevant in our own modern world. No, the Torah is meant to adapt, to be adaptable, to evolve to every single time and place.
This past Thursday we celebrated the two hundred year anniversary of a man who’s work forever changed our world. That’s right two hundred years ago (on the very same day and year as President Lincoln) Charles Darwin was born. As we all know, Charles Darwin was the genius author of the scientific work The Origin of Species and the father of the Theory of Evolution. It is the rare human being whose impact upon the world as we know it remains to be felt two hundred years after their death: but this is clearly the case with Darwin.
In his theory of Evolution and Natural Selection, Darwin argues that tiny changes made over thousands, if not millions of years, can have tremendous impact upon the makeup of a species. Those tiny changes, or mutations, which make an organism more likely to survive, more likely to reproduce, become the defining characteristics of a given species of plant or animal as we know it today. The ancestral giraffe with the longest necks were able to reach the food on the higher branches and therefore able to survive. The penguin who could swim the fastest could avoid his predator, and after time it no longer became necessary for him to fly. We all remember our science classes from school, we are all intimately aware of Darwin’s compelling theory of evolution.
But what I encourage each of us to think of, on this the day we read of the Revelation at Mt. Sinai, is how the Torah can also be seen as an evolving organism. Though the text has remained the same (more or less) throughout the generations, every time and place has asked the Torah to adapt to its unique circumstances. Each time a Jew asks their rabbi about issues relating to electricity on Shabbat, driving to shul, tattoo removal, organ donation or perhaps even sabbath observance while orbiting the Earth, we are asking the Torah to adapt to our own unique time and our own unique situation. And remarkably, though not always perfectly, the Torah does adapt. It has the ability to mutate, to change in order to reflect a more ‘perfect’ version of Revelation.
Now, we all know, that some species of Judaism are more inclined to adapt than others, and I like to think of the Conservative movement as the penguin who may not have been the first to remove all hope of ever flying again, but ultimately it did what it had to do to survive. And no doubt, some in our Jewish world would call this evolution mere capitulation. But know this: that this has been the path of every single Jewish generation since the one that stood at Mount Sinai, to receive the ever-adaptable Torah continually, each and everyday.
Finally, I would like to leave you this morning with a final evolutionary thought. There are some who say that God is a figment of the human imagination, an invention of the human mind whose purpose is to give meaning to the joy and the hardship of life. And to them I think Darwin might have said: you may very well be right! But there nonetheless must be some evolutionary benefit to this thing we call ‘belief’ to have caused it to stick around for so long.
So this morning I am arguing that there is an evolutionary benefit to keeping our Holy Torah. The acceptance of the Torah is a mutation in our own spiritual DNA as a people, which gives benefit to each and every generation of Jews. I believe that living our lives by the moral code of our Bible, that by imbuing our lives with moments of ritual that make the mundane - holy, the benign - spiritual, we elevate ourselves and our species. And for this lesson in ‘spiritual evolution’ Mr. Darwin, I sincerely thank you.
Shabbat Shalom
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